About the Bike
by ADashOfInsanity
Summary: A drabble in which we see how the Holmes' parents attempted to condition their eccentric children, and how a young Sherlock will never let his brother keep any item the budding detective definitely wants. Childhood Crack Drabble


**AN: Hello! This is my first (and only) attempt at Sherlock fan fiction. I wrote this during the time the first series of BBC Sherlock was being broadcast and just left it to gather dust. I don't feel like writing for yet another fandom, but I thought I could try putting it up after a few quick alterations to see what people think. **

**So, here is my attempt at a Sherlock childhood drabble! Yes, it is fairly crackish, but please enjoy and all reviews are appreciated of course!**

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><p><strong>About the Bike<strong>

Sibling rivalry had always been rife in the Holmes household. It was an ever constant battle, not aided, of course, by the sheer intelligence of each sibling. Of course, Mr and Mrs Holmes had always known their littlest '_bundle of joy'_ had the edge over his elder brother, however they couldn't help but prefer Mycroft. How could they not? His little brother was turning out to be quite the sociopath! After removing little Sherlock from several sets of railings, a dangerous position on the very end of Brighton Pier, and many _many _police stations, they had decided that his investigative queerness needed, desperately, to be replaced with a more…acceptable…past time.

Their therapist said they needed Sherlock to come to terms with what exactly ideal behaviour _was_ first. And so, they invented a reward system to teach Sherlock that good behaviour was rewarded with good things. It was an easy enough principle for their budding genius, their therapist had said, and Sherlock's elder brother could provide a perfect example for him. For what was a better example of how a proper good little boy behaved than Mycroft? He ate his vegetables, woke up of his own accord, and didn't shut himself in the airing cupboard to investigate what it would feel like to be asphyxiated. And so, the new reward scheme started and Mycroft began to reap the rewards of his parents' new attempt at conditioning their children. He was _very_ pleased with himself and was happy to point out Sherlock's ineptitude in social situations as quickly as he could. Of course his doting parents, who loved the idea that their eldest child was supporting their attempt to tame his brother, instantly praised Mycroft for it and gave him all the toys and sweets he could possibly desire.

Sherlock didn't seem to care however. He ignored the sweets and the toys, the day-trips and the treats. He wasn't even enticed by his own birthday cake, as he sprayed the neat ginger-bread pirate ship with odour-removal spray to investigate whether it would have any odour-removal effects on those who ate it. By the scent of Mycroft's socks when he had fished them out the laundry bin, his experiment had been failure. The poisoning of his family earned him his greatest punishment yet but, he didn't care. He never cared.

Well he didn't caure until one day, on Mycroft's birthday, when a certain package from his parents caught his eye. He had made no objection to Mycroft's extravagant array of birthday gifts. The computer, the food, the automatic umbrella, the water-pistol that looked like a real gun, all passed him without him feeling a care in the world. However, as his last and biggest present, Mycroft had been given a bicycle. Not any bicycle, Sherlock noted, but a five-geared, with mountain-terrain suspension, BlackArrow73, a very expensive brand of bike, but also a very useful one. Mycroft was very smug about his new gift and walked round the house in his cycle helmet, ringing the excessive bell on the already impressive bike. He loved it, well… Sherlock knew that wouldn't do.

"It's second hand," he said, not looking up from that morning's edition of the Sunday Times, not exactly light reading for a normal boy of his age, but since when had Sherlock been normal?

"What?" asked Mycroft, holding onto his bike as if it was his noble steed, "Second hand? Of course not! Mother and Father said they bought it brand new!"

"They lied," said Sherlock, not looking up from his paper. He was reading a particular thrilling article about a woman who had had chest crushed in and her internal organs destroyed by an unknown murderer. The police were being especially thick about it this time. Didn't they even think to look at the unique trampling in the grass, it was clear even the newspaper photo that the trampling was from a pair of men's Doc Martins with a slightly damaged heel. He settled back in the chair as his brother protested

"They didn't lie," Mycroft huffed, "You're just trying to weird me out. It's brand new, of course it is!" Sherlock let out a long exasperated sigh.

"If it was brand new it would not have the tiny scratches present along the spokes of the back wheel, as if the spokes have been scraped against a wall, at a tight corner, possibly at a recklessly fast speed. The wall itself was made of red brick, made in bulk in a warehouse, possibly in Cornwall, though it is harder to tell for they are very standard bricks. The red dust shows in four very obvious places on the rear tire, and in three on the front." Mycroft looked at his bike, he could see Sherlock reflected in the mirror over the mantelpiece on the opposite wall. He had merely raised one thin eyebrow and was still reading about bloody murder.

"I don't see any dust,"

"You've got an opticians appointment next Wednesday at four fifty pm."

"You didn't guess that, Mother wrote it on the calendar!"

"That is past the point. Also, if your eyesight was not as deficient you would have noticed the marks."

"Marks?" asked Mycroft, sounding perturbed. His brand new toy was scratched!

"Oh yes," said Sherlock, he glanced idly at his wrist watch, bright blue with Mickey Mouse on it. He had chosen it because it had the widest screen to it, the cartoon mouse was nothing to do with it but his parents seemed impressed that he'd chosen something that was normal for his age. In fact he got sweets for it, so it had been a doubly successful venture.

"The marks on the mud guard are from the same contact with the wall, also on the handlebars, indentations from nails. By the size of them, probably from a teenager, aged fourteen to fifteen, with poor nail hygiene, there are skin flakes and under-nail dirt on the brake lever as well." Mycroft instant took his hands off the handlebars and took a handkerchief from one of his pockets and hastily wiped his hands clean.

"A teenager rode this bike? A big teenager?"

"No, a small teenager, because this is a child's bicycle, they obviously sold it upon riding over an innocent animal. They evidently felt guilty for this and wished to sell the evidence."

"Innocent animal?" Mycroft was looking vaguely uncomfortable now but Sherlock merely raised his other eyebrow.

"The fur on the tyres. Oh please, you can't tell me you didn't even notice that _big brother_?" He sounded exasperated at Mycroft's stupidity. Mycroft on the other hand was staring at him with eyebrows raised, how dare his parents give him a second hand dirty bike!

"Fur?" repeated Mycroft, who was now looking at his beloved bicycle with great revulsion on his face.

"Oh yes," there was an element of glee in Sherlock's voice now, "Short fur, the colour and the lightening of the shade at the tips…I'd say a hedgehog. And by how short the fur is, it is also finer, I'd say…a juvenile hedgehog, no more than a few months old."

"My…my bike…" said Mycroft, "My bike…ran over a baby hedgehog?"

"Yes!" said Sherlock, as if delighted at his brother's sudden deduction, "Yes, a baby hedgehog, not only is it scratched and second hand, but it produced road kill, what a wonderful feat of modern engineering!" Mycroft started to inch away from his bicycle.

"Mother and Father have given me a…killer bike?"

"Yes," said Sherlock. He finally looked up from his paper, smiling eerily. Mycroft wasn't so fond of his darling bike now, was he! Oh how he'd loved it when he'd got it, boasted at every hour of the day, but remarkably, it looked like he didn't want it anymore!

"I thought you were going cycling with Father?" he said lightly.

"I'm not cycling on that killer!" said Mycroft, sounding disgusted, as if he refused to ride on something so desecrated "I'll…I'll… Mother and Father give me enough pocket money! I'll buy a new one! I don't want it anymore!" Suddenly he seemed to have an idea.

"Sherlock! You're a freaky macabre little thing. Take the death-plagued bike!"

"What?" asked Sherlock, as Mickey Mouse told him it was two o clock.

"Take the freakish bike!" said Mycroft determinately "I don't want it! You have it! You've never had a bike of your own! Take it!"

"But it's yours," said Sherlock, sounding surprised, but his wicked seven-year-old's eyes were glinting slightly.

"Well it's yours now!" said Mycroft, "You should be very grateful little brother!" He hurried out the room, leaving Sherlock with the bicycle. Sherlock leapt up off the chair, spinning in the process, he hastily steered the bike out the door.

"Finally!" In a burst of childish innocence, he giggled loudly and clambered on to the superb bike. Oh, his brother was so easy to manipulate! One day, when he was a pirate and Mycroft was an astronaut he would have complete control of the seas, and NASA, he could tell even now!

"Thank you Mycroft!" He called mockingly, and off he went. This was brilliant! Now he could get to that murder scene right on the other side of London! He could go and look at the Doc Martin prints himself! There was no point telling his parents where he was going, they usually found him eventually!

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><p>"Was there actually anything wrong with the bicycle, really?" A sceptical eyebrow was raised as Sherlock Holmes, in the year 2012, laughed.<p>

"Surely you can deduce that, even with your tiny capacity John," John Watson looked slightly offended but gave an exasperated sigh. He should have expect this, really he should.

"There was nothing wrong with the bike was there? It was brand new." Sherlock put his hands together and gave his partner a devious smile. There was a moment of silence between them in which Sherlock smiled whimsically into space and John checked the view count on his blog as his laptop balance precariously in his lap.

Suddenly something beeped,

"Oh, that's my phone," said John, he picked it up off the coffee table and checked it. His expression slid from one of curiosity to his usual expression of Sherlock-induced exasperation.

"It's for you," he groaned, and handed it over. The world's only consulting detective took the phone, read the text and began to laugh again. As nice as it was to see him in high spirits about something other than a heatless murderer or on a dangerous nicotine high, John was faintly perturbed to what this text could possibly be about after that…enlightening…story.

"You bastard," said Sherlock, John jumped,

"Excuse me!" Sherlock showed him the phone, the text read, 'you bastard', and the sender was Mycroft Holmes.

"How does he know what we're saying!" said John, looking round for bugs and cameras in all the corners of their shared living room.

"He doesn't, he likes spending sporadic abuse to me when he is feeling particularly vengeful," said Sherlock, sighing.

"Did he ever know?"

"About the bike, yes," They lapsed into silence, which seeped through the entire room until John had to voice something he had been wondering ever since Sherlock had launched into this bizarre tale of his childhood.

"So why did you now decide to nail the handlebars to the ceiling?"

Mrs Hudson was not going to be impressed.


End file.
